XU YANZHOU (CHINESE B. 1961)

XU YANZHOU (CHINESE B. 1961)Seated Nude, 1988oil on canvas79 x 58.5 cm (31 1/8 x 23 in.)signed and dated lower rightPROVENANCEThe Estate of Milton Gelfand, Pound Ridge, New York LOT NOTESBorn in Qingdao, Xu Yanzhou is a visual artist and master of contemporary realism who became well known as a professional artist at his early twenties, establishing himself within the Chinese National Society of Artists and the National Society of Artists in Beijing. Xu Yanzhou is considered a major figure in the school of rural realistic painting in China, although, the topics of his paintings are very diverse, ranging from rural scenes and captivating female portraits to imaginative paintings which are close to science fiction. The present lot is one of the artist`s early works, created, most likely, at the time he was conducting research in oil painting at the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts. The work comes from the estate of Milton Gelfand, a successful businessman, who traveled extensively around communist China during the Sino-U.S. rapprochement in the 1970-90s and built an impressive art collection mainly comprised of contemporary Chinese paintings and sculpture.